The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-08-06

|
a young officer and pretty, penniless girl
whom he persuaded to make runaway
match from school. But so it was; Mr..
Wentworth, always a man Of impulse, had
CHANGED on the young couple when the girl
mother was dying, her husband just or
dered abroad to the active service, in which
| he fell. the child, whose very existence
was load of pain to the young parents, he
adopted from its infancy, giving it his
name, making it his own by every possible
legal tie, and spending on it all the tender
ness of a disposition which knew well how
to be kind, if not opposed.
! This much Honoria had extracted from
her unwilling informer who reiterated as
she left him: pray, pray remember, Miss
Wentworth, remember your supposed
father had every right to do as he chose
with his fortune. BY his fathers last test
ament the choice of adding to his two sis
ters' dover was distinctly left in his own
hands. If they married in defiance of his
wishes they had no right to expect an ex-
ira farthing. 1t is as much yours as if you
had been his very own child Now, don't
| let this discovery, which need travel no
farther than ourselves trouble you"
A very easy injunction that, but one
totally impracticable, as so many more
| given by outsiders to mental and physical
patients. Shocked and distressed one mo-
ment, indignant at the long deception prac-
ticed on her. angry with him who had mi
tiated it, the next blaming herself poign-
antly for daring to think i'll of her imagined
father, her unquestionable benefactor,
Honoria drove back to Dernside in a whirl
of emotion, that made her pretcxt of over
fatigue no mere excuse for not joining the
| party downstairs at dinner, or after on the
moon-lit lawn.
"My head does ache So" she said to anx-
ious Mrs Crosbie, who fastened to her, II
am best alone"
| But we are all so sorry" answered her
friend-"be better; quite yourself to-mor-
row, dear. Hubert Grahame said how pale
you looked when he passed you in the ave-
nue.. Hove shall all miss you sou
! Another curious pang shot through the
| girl at this. The Hubert Grahame that
Mrs Crosbie spoke of was young sur
geon, good friend to Jack Crosbie, who
had lately gone up to the London hospitals,
and had thence written a few weeks before
| TO his mother:
"Grahame is capital fellow. He has
! kept me out of scrapes no end. He's been
taking double duties; think his people are
| poorish, and he's hipped now and done up
with overwork, so | want you to ask him to
Dernside for good long while"
To Dernside, accordingly, the young man
had come, surprised when it was the Hall
and not the Rectory, where he was to be
| located, and treating Miss Wentworth,
| when he met her, with a reserved courtesy,
! which she had fancied due to shyness, and
had taken pleasure in breaking down by
frank kindness peculiarly her own.
That was dangerous experiment. At
! times, Hubert Grahame fell under the fas-
cinations of honoria's charming manners;
at others he would keep aloof, marking by
some few little words, perhaps, the differ
encc between him, young unpropertied
professional man, and her, the owner of
| Dernside. Whether he cared for her as
| (alas, poor rich girlD she grew to care for
him, she hardly knew; now in her new
dilemma she tried to persuade herself his
liking was only that of friend; then, what
she had to do would not hurt him as it must
| hurt her.
For, while she lay awake that night, and
through the next day when she kept to her
own rooms, Honoria found what lay before
her, in justice to her so-called fathers kim
| dred in justice to herself.
Those women, fighting and fencing
| through the world for their children's sake,
should find rest and relief at last. She
must take her turn at life's shadier side
now. Ease was delightful, wealth was
natural to her, but she must have done with
these. And should she (there lay the sting
| that made her shudder so,) must she have
| done with something else, new to her hopes,
sweeter than bothi Would that, too, follow
in the track of all her other riches!
| Fair and slender and girlish as Honoria
| seemed, there was plenty of courage in her
| composition. The second morning after
| that hoo lN,,,O
her she wrote two letters-one to Mr.. Dean,
the other to ''Geraldine Corbette," the sis
ter whose entreates Mr.. Wentworth had
answered in the negative''-then, with
sketching-block in hand, she went forth
from the house, dreading and yet desiring
to face the hardest piece Of work necessity
| forced on her
The younger Crosbies were playing on
the lawn, clamoring loudly that they were
| so glad that she had come out again
Swinging a pair of them in a hammock
stood Hubert Grahame, watching her, she
knew, as she passed through the garden,
down the foot-path to the gray wall by the
stream, where she so often sat. Would he
follow her, as he so often did No: the
young man was turning indoors, with a
sigh and few words to his hostess, which
he felt impelled then and there to utter.
"My holiday ought to be up, Mrs. Cros-
bic. must be leaving you directly"
To which the lady, covertly amused, for
she fancied she read through the young
peoples secret, and wished her rich girl
friend no better husband than this young
man, poor though he was, answered de-
murely:
"Well, well, you're not in such hurry,
are you, that you can not spare
little while TO shelter Miss Wentworth
from sunstroke! Here"-catching up a
japanese umbrella-"hold this over her,
pray, while she paints, and we will talk
about your departure at lunch time" So,
not to be churlish, Mr.. Grahame was forced
to act on her suggestion.
But he went reluctantly, such mixture
of feelings seething within him as made
him strangely uncompanionable, even when
he reached the spot where the artist
worked; and she, embarrassed more sorely
than he suspected, was very silent, too.
For minutes, that seemed an hour to both,
she sedulously painted on at the view be-
fore them--the river, the woods, her home,
standing in stately comfort among clusters
of beech and pine-then, said he, with
curious hard ring in his voice.
"How IS it, MISS Wentworth, that you,
having the substance of these good things,
desire the shadow also! Is not the better
| part enough for you?n